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CSI: NY
Damned if You Do

Original Air Date: Oct 08, 2010

Maria – TwoCents Reviewer
maria@thetwocentscorp.com

It starts with several scantily clad women, obviously at a party. A blond haired young man is getting a lot of attention from all the girls but one girl especially marks her territory. He kisses her then pours red wine into her mouth. Cut to a blood splattered carpet before eventually revealing a bloodied couple, beaten terribly in their own beds. The man is dead but the woman is still alive, barely. Mac questions the woman who is unable to speak. He is able to get her to identify their son as the attacker. Their son: the same blond haired man at the party.

Don is sent to the party to arrest the son, Billy Travers. Jo Danville interrogates him and he denies everything.

Sid makes an appearance this episode, helpfully explaining the wounds on Mr. Travers’ dead body, explaining that the murder weapon was probably a tire iron or a crow bar. He also makes some rather odd small talk with Jo Danville for the first time onscreen. I view Sid as the creepy uncle of the CSI:NY family and I have missed him greatly.

Ah, another suspect. A prisoner, Owen Hicks, declares his cell-mate, Ravrara, has confessed to killing the couple. So, the only suspects are the son who was identified by the badly beaten mother and a felon who is willingly confessing. Ravrara does give a location for the murder weapon though.

Cut to Don sitting on the sidewalk, talking aloud, apparently to Danny who is searching for the possible murder weapon. Danny and Don have a history with sewers.

Mac runs into a snag though as he visits the mother, Grace Travers, and she declares that her son would never do such a thing and that she never identified him as her attacker. The mother does have brain damage but perhaps she is telling the truth. There is nothing to place Billy Travers at the crime scene. Perhaps he didn’t attack his parents.

It is revealed that the crowbar that Ravrara insists was used in the break-in/beating/murder… actually isn’t any of those things since the rust doesn’t match the rust at the crime scene. He was lying in order to get sent to a prison closer to his girlfriend. Owen Hicks was on the scheme, hoping to get a deal. Rather predictable but at least the way the CSIs acquire this information is interesting: lab-geek Adam dressed up as a polygrapher to make Hicks tell the truth. The bluff works, much to the surprise of Danny and the confidence of Jo Danville.

There is some insight into Jo’s background. Mac and Jo have an interesting conversation which reveals she reported a close co-worker when he covered up a mistake he made on a case. A rapist went free but Jo knows she made the right decision. Mac agrees. He is filing the paperwork which discredits Grace Travers’ identification of her son as the attacker, even though he was the one who pursued it.

So, with both suspects looking innocent there is only one lead left: glass that was found at the crime scene which seemed out of place, possibly tracked in by the killer. The glass comes back to one of four companies: the most likely being an art installation where people smash glass bottles against a cage. There’s a company which cleans up the glass and one of their workers, Paul Benson, has a criminal history which stands out: imprisoned for rape after his own parents testified against him. His parents used to live in the same house as the Travers’.

The murder was a case of mistaken identity.

The episode ends with Mac visiting the mother, her son and his girlfriend by her bedside. She can not remember Mac and he acknowledges the fact that Billy Travers’ is a good son.

What do you think of this episode? What is your opinion of Jo Danville, of Sid Hammerback, of Adam Ross? Did you find the case interesting? Please, leave a reply and let us know your Two Cents about this episode.